Against Oblivion and Silence

I translated a post from a great new German blog called Philippika:

1995, the German Dirk Hasert, the US-Americans Donald Hutchings and John Childs, the Britons Paul Wells and Keith Mangan and the Norwegian Hans Christian Ostrø were kidnapped close to the tourist place Pahalgam in Kashmir by the Islamist Djihadists of a group called Al-Faran.

Childs was able to escape, the 27-year old Ostrø was beheaded by his kidnappers, the other four men remained lost.

It won't do any harm to remember that all this happened before 9/11, previous to the military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, before Abu Ghraib and before the many cowardly assassinations all over the globe, including the murder and beheading of many hostages in Iraq and, will wonders ever cease, it didn't even have anything to do with Israel.

Hasert was officially declared dead by the Indian government in 2003.

In April 2006 Germany followed suit.

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